Up In Flames
by AllusionToAnIllusion
Summary: She stares for a moment before her shoulders are sagging and her jaw is relaxing and she barely even registers the sound of her heels clacking on the wood floor as she moves to him. Always to him.


_For Beeber._

* * *

Her breath catches when she sees him standing in the hall by the break room, head swiveling as he looks for her. She stares for a moment before her shoulders are sagging and her jaw is relaxing and she barely even registers the sound of her heels clacking on the wood floor as she moves to him. Always to him.

He turns just as she lands a hand on his shoulder, gathering her into his arms as she tumbles into him. She wriggles in closer to his chest, pressing her nose into his neck so she can breathe him in. She feels his thumb stroke the back of her hand, pulls away as if she's been burned. Not when she was just washing her day off of those hands, grime and dirt and death.

"Kate." She presses her eyelids tight together, willing away images of burning buildings and charred bodies. "Kate, what happened?" She knows she'll have to explain at some point. He's been at the loft, taking a day off from the precinct to write because she's been taking up so much of his free time lately. But not now. Just not now.

"Get me out of here, Castle."

"What about–"

"Gates told me to go home. I don't want to go home."

"Then where–"

"Take me to the loft, Castle."

* * *

She finds that she can't stare out the window on the car ride back to his place. The city – her city – is only cold and damp tonight as it rains, putting out any last remnants of the flames that burned bright this afternoon. She thinks she should be grateful for the rain, feel a sort of catharsis as it washes away the ashes of today. She looks away from the window, staring instead at the soft lines of Castle's face as he drives. He makes it easier, less of an acute pain and more of a dull throb.

"You're staring."

_Shots ringing out everywhere, bullets bouncing off the hood of her car as she takes cover. Keep your head down. Stay low. Keep breathing. _

"Yeah."

_Pressing her body against the wall after firing another shot, she heaves another breath and presses further into the warehouse right along with the others. Someone goes down, she hears yelling up ahead, and she goes further in. _

"I distinctly remember you once telling me that staring was creepy."

_Get out. Get out of the building. Now. _

"Well, what good are you to me if I can't use you as eye candy?"

_She half-stumbles half-sprints out the door of the warehouse, ducking behind a car as the building goes up in flames, licking the clouds and trying to find their home in the sun. _

"I guess I can make the sacrifice. The things I do for you, Beckett."

* * *

She sits in his desk chair, a book that she hasn't read a page of sitting in her lap as she stairs out the window. It has fully turned to night now, but it's never truly dark in the city. The flashing lights morph into deadly fire, dancing to the beat of the city. She shrinks away from the window, curling in on herself in the most animalistic way.

"I made some pasta if you're hungry." He's in the doorway, looking deliciously rumpled from his cooking endeavors, sleeves of his purple button-down rolled up and hair mussed from running his hands through it. She gets up from the chair, moving away from the window and toward him. She runs her fingers up his chest when she reaches him, toying with the top button of his shirt before popping it open.

"I don't want pasta." She attacks his neck then, drawing a gasp from him as she pushes him up against his bookshelves. His hands settle carefully at her hips, like he's not sure what he's supposed to do, but she doesn't want careful. She wants desperate, she wants _alive_. Dragging her teeth across his collarbone before nipping at the skin there, she starts working on the rest of his buttons. His hands squeeze as he lets out a little groan and _yes_,she's got him right where she wants him.

"Oh God, Kate." She chuckles darkly at that, running her tongue along his stubble, reveling in the sharp scrape of it. But then she's the one against the bookshelf, him pressing her hard into the poetry behind them. His hands have left her waist and now they're _everywhere_ except right where she wants them.

"Rick," she bites his earlobe and flicks it with her tongue, "make me forget." He pulls back at that, his hands falling to her shoulders when she tries to follow him with her mouth.

"What?" His brow is furrowed, but she can see it in his eyes. He knows but he doesn't want to.

"I don't want to see it anymore. Make me see you instead." She uses the hand she has fisted in his shirt to tug him close again, everything she has calling out for him to just please give in, but he resists.

"What happened today?" She startles at the force in his voice, her gaze rising from his lips to his eyes. She sees fire there too.

She uses the distance he's created to slip away, slink into the living room where there's more space and she isn't crushed with the weight of all she's never told him. And not just today. She sits in the armchair, knows it's because she doesn't want him trying to soothe her while she tells him. His touch and his words are a deadly combination. He sits on the couch, the closest seat he can manage to the chair, and waits silently.

"I had a partner before you." She looks up from her hands then, trying to gauge his reaction. He looks a little shocked, like he hadn't even considered the possibility before, but curious too. "David Nugent. He was my partner after I made detective, showed me the ropes. Then after a year he transferred over to Vice. We kept in touch for a while but you know how it is, people eventually just drift." She knows without looking that Castle's studying her, trying to figure out where this is going but unwilling to push.

"He died today."

"Oh, Kate." She seems him getting up and holds out her hand to stop him. She can fall apart after she gets it out.

"I heard a call on the radio, all units, and I was close, Castle. I was so close. And when I got over there all hell had broken loose. Shots firing everywhere and cops are going down but everyone is just pushing _deeper_ into the warehouse." She closes her eyes against it, her senses assaulted by the memory. She moves her fingers, wiggles them around, but only feels cool fabric. She was wrong. She needs him with her.

"Kate?" Thank God for this man who seems to just know.

"Castle." It's laced with need, hot and pure. She feels him trying to settle into the too-small armchair next to her, lets out a strained laugh because there's no way they can both fit like this. She rearranges herself, ends up on his lap with her legs draped over the side of the chair.

He nuzzles into her hair, presses his nose there and she's grateful for it because she's not the only one who breathes the other in. Placing her hand on his chest, she lets herself get lost in his heartbeat for a moment. His heart is pumping steadily under her hand, blood flowing through him and staying _inside_ of him. She's suddenly so very glad he stayed home to write today.

"But then people were screaming, yelling at us to get back, to get out. And all I could do was run for the door and duck for cover because everyone was saying that the building was _about to go up_." She curls further into him, scratching her nails on the fabric of his shirt.

"But you made it out. You're okay." He's reassuring himself, subconsciously letting his hands wander as he checks for injuries.

"David didn't. He didn't make it out." She tries to fight against it, the onslaught of his charred body, the wedding ring she didn't want to think about trying to get off of his blackened finger. She looks up at Castle, needing something that she can't quite place.

"I always thought I'd get shot, you know? Being a cop, and all. I never thought I'd burn to death. I can't imagine burning to death." Except she can, all too vividly. Flames licking at her skin, heat curling up her body, smoke choking her – she presses her face into his chest. Except he cups her head with his hand, guides her back to meet his eyes and _oh, that's good_. That blue, seemingly leaking from his eyes, is such a stark contrast to the burning oranges and yellows of her memory.

"You're going to die in our bed, Kate. When we're good and old and ready." His tone is soft, as if he's afraid he'll spook her, but the underlying passion in his words is almost too much for her. It hits her that he can't afford to believe otherwise. She rests her forehead against his in understanding, breathing in the scent of his cologne, because when it comes to him, she can't afford to believe otherwise either.

* * *

_So I have absolutely no idea where this came from. But the part about Kate's tongue and his stubble came to me and I decided to just see what came of it. Apparently I get tragic when I don't have a predetermined plot. _

_Review? Please? _


End file.
